In 2015, Nick Molnar was living with his parents in Sydney, Australia, and selling jewelry from a desktop computer in his childhood bedroom. Hocking everything from $250 Seiko watches to $10,000 engagement rings, the 25-year-old had gotten so good at online marketing that he had become Australia’s top seller of jewelry on eBay, shipping thousands of packages a day. That same year, he teamed up with Anthony Eisen, a former investment banker who was 19 years his senior and lived across the street. They cofounded Afterpay, an online service that allows shoppers from the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand and…

Donald Trump, his supporters say, is a man who fights. Yet that supposed fighting can sometimes feel more like Punch and Judy-style slapstick theater. In the Trump era, only the thinnest membrane separates politics from televisual spectacle, which can make it difficult to gauge how effective the president really is. Is he beating back the left? Or is he just calling them names on Twitter while they pound the pavement to replace him? Whatever the answers to those questions, one thing is now abundantly clear: the vacancy of a Supreme Court seat has given Trump an opportunity to fight, really fight. Ruth Bader…

Congressional action has typically left big tech firms intact, instead mandating that they improve access for all consumers. Washington should stick to that model. It seemed like the beginnings of a redemption story of epic proportions. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Big Tech surveillance capitalists, such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, which had been in the public crosshairs only weeks earlier suddenly became essential to survival. With worldwide lockdowns, everything that could be moved online went digital, handing us the purest test yet of Big Tech’s usefulness for our very day-to-day survival—from work to school to…

Earlier this month, I wrote about a bill including marijuana legalization that United States House of Representatives Democratic leadership had planned to bring to the House floor for a vote this month. The bill — the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act (HR 3884), I noted, appears to have no chance of being approved in the Republican majority US Senate or of receiving a signature from President Donald Trump. This is because the virtually “Democrats only” bill includes race-based provisions and marijuana business subsidies that are anathema to many Republicans, including those who favor legalization.Indeed, I wrote in my article about…

Washington (CNN)The Trump administration is threatening Russia that they could increase the cost of extending the one remaining nuclear weapons treaty between the two countries if Moscow does not commit to meeting US demands, including agreeing to stronger verification measures, before the American presidential election in November. The two countries have spent months negotiating over the renewal of the New START nuclear weapons treaty. Moscow has said it is open to renewing it for five years, while the Trump administration is seeking a new framework and will only renew the treaty if Russia makes additional commitments. "What we have suggested to the…